Meet Carole Baskin, founder of Big Cat Rescue, a non-profit sanctuary in Tampa, FL housing more than 100 big cats – lions, tigers, leopards, bob cats and all kinds of exotic cats. Big Cat Rescue is an operating sanctuary. Visitors who tour the facility see how the cats are cared for on their 70 acreage property. I recorded this podcast on location at Big Cat Rescue, sitting just 10 feet from a beautiful Bengal tiger. On this episode of the Social Business Engine podcast you'll learn how Big Cat Rescue raises more than half of their annual operating budget through social media. - Listen to the podcast at: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/big-cat-rescue-carole-baskin/

1. The Purrfect
Social Business
Strategy for
Non-Profits
An Interview with Carole Baskin
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2. Meet
Carole Baskin
Carole is the founder of Big Cat
Rescue, a non-profit sanctuary in
Tampa, FL housing more than 100
big cats – lions, tigers, leopards, bob
cats and all kinds of exotic cats.
Big Cat Rescue is in its 22nd year of
operation. It’s not a zoo. It’s an
operating sanctuary. Visitors who
tour the facility see how the cats
are cared for on their 70 acreage
property.
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3. Business
Requirements
All non-profits need revenue to run their
operation. Big Cat Rescue’s annual
revenue nut is $2.7 million. Carole points
out that one tiger alone costs $10,000
per year just for food and veterinary
care. And, that doesn’t include sanctuary
overhead.
Big cats live well into their teens at Big
Cat Rescue. So, rescuing and adopting a
big cat is at least a $100K commitment
over the life of the cat.
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4. While some cats are rescued from a
circus, most rescues are tigers because
of the unfortunate thriving business of
cub petting. People are willing to pay
money to have their picture taken with a
cute tiger cub. The problem is that once
the cub reaches about 12 weeks of age,
they are too big to be held. So the
business operator needs to dispose of
the cat.
Big Cat Rescue’s goal is to pass Federal
legislation that will outlaw private
ownership of big cats to prevent cruelty
to these beautiful animals whose only
existence should be in the wild.
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5. Big Cat Rescue Is
a Social Business
Carole Baskin has experimented with
just about every social channel, and
settled on those that drive awareness
and help to raise the funds they need to
operate the sanctuary.
Carole admits that their goal is to put
themselves out of business by
advocating through legislation for no
more big cats in cages.
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6. Running the
Business
Carole has been an enthusiastic student of all
things digital since the beginning. Their assets
include:
• Website -3 million visitors per year.
• YouTube - 76 million views across 350 videos.
Videos are intentionally entertaining to appeal to
people’s funny bone and to attract other media
outlets to cover their story and give them
exposure.
The goal with all digital assets is to make an
emotional connection with the cats to inspire
action. Desired actions include making a financial
donation and lending support to the Federal
legislation Big Cat Rescue and others like them
are advocating.
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7. The Business of
Social
Big Cat Rescue only has 12 paid staff,
plus about 100 volunteers. All the cat
caregivers are volunteers. There is a
very structured program for volunteers.
They receive a lot of training. The paid
staff manages volunteers,
communication relations, digital media
and donor relations.
In case you’re wondering, most
organizations of comparable size have
30 paid staff.
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8. A $108,000
Day
On May 6, 2014 there was a one day (first time)
event named Give Day Tampa Bay. Local
charities in the Tampa Bay area competed for
donations through social media interaction.
Big Cat Rescue won the day with 802
donations. Carol’s strategy was to build social
cred with funny cat pictures and asking people
to donate $25 each.
Amazingly, they raised $85.8K plus $22.5K in
prize money for a total of $108K in just 24
hours, 100% through their social networking
engagement.
Big Cat Rescue won the most donations of all
the charities in the competition. That’s $108K in
one day, fueled entirely by social media
engagement! Wow.
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9. Visual Social
Marketing
It’s horrible to witness big cats living in
people’s backyards or in basements.
What makes people happy is seeing
where their donations go. In the age of
social media, people can see how the
animals are living in a natural sanctuary
just by visiting the website and the Big
Cat Rescue YouTube channel. They have
a secondary YouTube channel called
Daily Big Cats that follows around the
staff to show how the sanctuary is run
by the people that make it happen
everyday.
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10. Most Effective
Social Channels
for
Big Cat Rescue
All of Big Cat Rescue’s online
channels are an opportunity to reach
people around the world. While you
can find Big Cat Rescue on just about
any social media platform, their main
ones are Facebook, YouTube, Google+
and Instagram.
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Wait, there’s more!….You can take Big
Cat Rescue with you on your mobile
device through their podcast The Cat
Chat show. It’s a video podcast where
they interview people who are experts in
the cat world, including small cat
experts. It’s available weekly in iTunes
and Libsyn for Android.
Cat Chat
Podcast

12. Mobile App
I was surprised when I launched their
mobile app, appropriately named Big
Cat Rescue. This app serves to
visually narrate the bio of each cat in
the sanctuary including the origin
and age of each cat, along with each
cat’s picture and story.
iPhone app
Android app
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Using Social To
Educate
In 2003 Big Cat Rescue was only able to
rescue about 2% of the known cats that
needed rescuing. Each year the number was
doubling.
Some progress was made when the Captive
Wildlife Safety Act passed in 2007. Last
year only 37 cats needed rescuing and Big
Cat Rescue accommodated 11 of them, which
is 30% of the problem.
Big Cat Rescue uses social to keep people
aware of advocacy, the issues and
legislation. The current Federal bill pending
in Congress will make it illegal to even own
a big cat and will close all the loopholes.

14. Transparency Builds Trust
Carole’s answer to my “one thing” question is transparency….As a non-profit, Big Cat Rescue
publishes all their financial records online. Carole believes that if all businesses were more
transparent, consumers would have more trust in them and more businesses would prosper from
their transparency.
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